Tag: fiction

He first appeared on a Friday.  I remember he seemed to be thinking carefully about his choice, but in the end he chose what everyone else chooses during the lunch rush: sliders.  After that he came in once a week, sometimes twice a week if he and his friends stopped by for sliders on Fridays.  Sometimes, I would be there to ring him up, but if it wasn’t me at the register he would not even look at me.  It did not matter where I was standing; next to the register, leaning against the counter, walking by him after I cleaned a table.  He would just look right into the eyes of Michelle or Jorge or whichever employee was helping him, oblivious to anyone and anything else that did not pertain to his order.

That was when I was not the one at the register.  When I was the person ringing him up, he would stare into my eyes.  I wondered if he knew what he was doing when he stared at me or anyone else like that.  He had the kind of hazel-flecked eyes that burn into you, almost as if he either hates you intensely or loves you more than he can bear.  At first I thought it was awkward to look into them, but then I realized it was not awkward at all.  It was actually kind of painful.  I wanted to look away, but at the same time I wanted to stare back.  I wanted to peer into the golden streaks that glitter under the lamp above the counter and get darker as you follow the streaks towards the pitch black iris in the center.  His furrowed brows, always low and close together casting shadowy patches over his eyes, and his lips pursed like he just said something he did not want to say and had to quiet himself.  But, his eyes.  I forced myself to look into his eyes because then I could pretend that he was there to see me.  That every week, or twice a week, he would stop at our restaurant just to see me, and look into my eyes, and touch my hand when I handed him his change.  He could not bear to be away from me or my hand, and every moment spent away was like agony to him, because his desire was too great and his heart could only stay away for so long.  He was not just there to eat burgers and joke around on his lunch hour with his friends or buy a pizza for him and some other girl he’s seeing.

I’d pretend he was there for me.

*      *      *

The first time I saw her she was at the register, leaning against the counter.  She had makeup on.  Not too plastered on, like some girls wear it.  She just had a nice amount of eye shadow and eyeliner all around along her lashes.  I think the term is “kohl-rimmed” eyes.  Some women wear it and they look kind of cheap, but not this girl.  Aside from the dark around her eyes she had real simple, flat black hair down to her shoulders, and she wore that powder that makes a girl look paler than she really is.  I liked that she looked so pale, especially with the black hair and dark around her eyes, but judging by the skin on her forearms and hands she probably didn’t need any of that make-up.  She was one of those classic fair-skinned beauties, like Snow White or some other make-believe character.  I could see her sometimes, when I got lost in a thought, as some princess walking along in a field of roses.  Her skin so bright that it would attract the attention of every misfit creature out there in that field and simultaneously scare them out of their wits to see such a gorgeous sight.  She would lull them in, their own curious nature and an indescribable attraction to this bright princess out in the field drawing them closer and closer until she sprung on them.  A few moments later they’d be dead, and she’d continue walking along unfazed by her own power over them.  Pretty as a picture.

But I’d seen lots of good-looking girls before, and I would see many good-looking girls long after she disappeared.  No, this girl had something else.  I caught it the first time I saw her, after noticing her make-up and fair skin.  It was on her arm.  The long, thin tendrils extending out across her forearm.  A black pattern over the faint blue threads intricately woven under the fabric of her skin, over the taut sinews that stretched as she handed me the change she held in her small hand.  A grotesque black shape that only the twisted calculations of nature can create, like the spirals of a conch shell or a long and evenly segmented bug that walks along on a thousand legs.  She wore it well.  I sometimes thought of asking her about it, that tattoo.  Why a spider-web?  Did she place it on her forearm as a symbol, as a joke, or did she think it just looked interesting?  Whatever her reason, I’d stepped into the parlor, and I was sure as hell stuck.

No, not stuck.  Caught… that’s what I was.  And I couldn’t shake loose.

*      *      *

On my more whimsical days I would see him roaming a desert in that blue truck that I always saw him drive into the parking lot.  Mountains would rise thousands and thousands of feet up into the air all around, creating a pit of sand and shrubs and living things that barely lived but somehow got by.  The sun shining down upon everything, down on the poor little desert animals that dashed across the sands looking for food and shelter, while the huge cacti towered above them and laughed amongst themselves at the silly little creatures’ attempts to survive.  Little chirpy things and buzzy things and the hollow wind would be the only musical accompaniment to the survival scene that played out day after day.  But as I sat or leaned or lay wherever I was at the time I would close my eyes tight and suddenly, he would be there.  That big blue truck of his with the ridiculously huge tires, narrowly missing the little creatures and leaving behind a trail of dust as he cut his path through the sands.  Defying the laughing cacti and chirpy, buzzy wind orchestra as he roared through the open land and let the sunshine come upon him through the open windows.  He was an explorer, this man.  He loved to roam free and did not like to worry about the inane issues that the rest of us deal with every day.  He liked to swim the ocean in the morning, climb the mountain in the afternoon, and rest in the valley at night.  Hazel-Eyes was the kind of man who made his own path.  The kind of man who took what he wanted.

Then, I would get depressed.  Why wouldn’t he take me?

*      *      *

On certain occasions I sat facing her as she worked at the register, with two friends sitting across the table watching the big television at one end of the place and one more guy on my right side facing the same direction I was.  I’d bite into my burgers and talk to the guys about work and football and the chick at work who was looking good that day, all the while stealing sly glances at the register.  She’d stand there, her body towards me but not facing me directly, sometimes talking to her big co-worker/friend who’d be off to the side with her back to me.  Sometimes that big co-worker/friend would stand right in the center of the area behind the register and block my view of her, and I’d just sit there burning a hole into her back at the spot where her too-tight T-shirt revealed a bra strap that was stretched beyond its limit.  I was prone to stare, as my folks used to tell me, but no one else ever seemed to notice.  So I’d stare and wait for her to move so that I could steal another quick glance of Spider-Web before she’d turn to enter the kitchen or manage some other task that was out of my field of vision.  Back there, where no one could see.  I bet she’d talk to the Mexican guys who worked the kitchen and smile playfully, turning them into mindless little drones who gave her anything she wanted.  Once they were smiling idiots gathered around her she’d walk her way into a big, empty back room with only a rug in the center.  Their eyes would remain locked on her as she’d reach down and lift the corner of the rug, careful not to shake up the layer of dust that rested precariously on the surface.  Beneath the rug there’d be a huge vault door, wooden and old with cracks running along the thick planks.  She’d lead them down there, one by one following closely behind, and when she returned from the vault there’d be no followers.  She’d replace the vault door, and the dusty old rug, and smile to herself as she returned to the register to help some customers that would suddenly appear from off on the side somewhere.

She’d probably go back there just to get out of my sight.

*      *      *

Hazel-Eyes continued to come to my restaurant nearly every week for four months, until the summer.  Each time I saw him I became more and more lost, finding myself wandering through fields of hazel-colored flowers or riding in a big blue truck through the mountains that extend up from the shoreline.  It grew beyond my work.  As I sat on the train, he would be there sitting across from me, the light behind him creating an aura of amazing light that transcended anything I could imagine without him.  At school I would see him sitting on a bench between two other guys, looking back at me.  Piercing me with his gaze.  But, best of all, there were the good days.  The days when he would appear in my room as I slept and wake me up.  I would hear him, though he did not speak, and see him, though many times my eyes would be closed.  And he would sit by the bed and look at me to show me I was there.

One day in early summer he appeared in my living room, sitting on the couch and watching Jeopardy with my parents.  The flickering blue glow from the television danced across his blank, expressionless face.  I waited for him to turn to me and look into my eyes like he did every time I saw him, but he never turned.  I waited, and waited, until at last my mother noticed and asked me why I was staring at her and my father.  I turned away in silence and returned to my room to wait for him, but he did not appear that night.  The next morning was a Friday, and I decided then that I could not wait for him.

I had to do it, for us.

*      *      *

My mind was slipping.  I knew, because it’d happened before.  Minutes seemed like days as I waited to get out to lunch and grab a bite to eat.  The time spent away from that restaurant was time wasted not being near her.  Her pale, beautiful skin, at the time so beautiful and unlike anything I’d ever seen, and of course the spider-web from which Spider-Web got her name, extending and wrapping around her thin, elegant arm.  She’d fly around me, dark angelic wings springing from her back, her luminescent hands extended out to me, calling me.  And I would follow, because what else could I do?  She had me, her and her dark web taking hold of me, dragging me towards her like a helpless creature caught in some predator’s sights, until at last I could do nothing else but stop resisting and go to her.

My mind was slipping because I thought of these things.  It was unhealthy, I knew, because it’d happened before.  The web didn’t have me completely paralyzed yet, and despite the immense beauty of Spider-Web and all that she was, I couldn’t do it again.  When that Friday came, I suggested we go to the deli up the street.  They asked me why I was suddenly changing routine.  I told them we should man up and try new things.

I had to get a grip on myself and end it, for our sake.

*      *      *

“What can I get for you?”  Her hand rested on the counter as she looked at him, head cocked at an angle.  She waited patiently, glancing out the window as the rain from a gray day fell in silence.

He looked up and rubbed his chin as he pondered his meal.  There was the menu.  Then he looked down, and she was looking at him.  “I think I’ll just go for the All-You-Can-Eat Sliders,” he said.

A blanket of gray clouds was always draped over the sky at that time of the afternoon, and the sun was nowhere to be seen when the woman emerged from the grove of trees. The wisps of her pallid blue dress trailed behind her. Her feet, what little of them was visible beneath the dress, were bare. The curls of her eerily shimmery locks cascaded down past her shoulders and likewise trailed along behind her as she stepped forward along the tufted ground. The blank expression on her face did little to convey her purpose as she neared the edge of the seaside cliff.

In her hands she held an open envelope. It was that envelope which caught the girl’s attention.

“Hi,” said the girl.

As she neared the edge of the cliff the woman slowed and turned her head to the left. There was a little girl sitting on a log, or rather a bench carved out of a fallen log, a short distance from the edge of the cliff. Her back was bent over. She wore a gray scarf flecked with strands of violet, and a simple purple coat coupled with a pair of denim jeans. Her feet, unlike the woman’s, were protected from the cold ground by a pair of yellow and white polyester shoes. In her hands she held a doll adorned in yellow yarn and a blue skirt. The girl’s tussled black hair gently waved about as the breeze from the late afternoon blew past her.

She had watched the woman approach with the envelope in her hands and turned to look at her, and she seemed nice so the girl thought it best to say, “Hi.” The little girl continued to look at the woman even when she did not respond. Her blank stare made her seem despondent, or as the girl might have said she looked “real sad.”

The woman looked back at the little girl, blue gaze locked on her. She said nothing. The little girl could only look back for so long before averting her gaze to mountains across the sea in front of her, nearly hidden by the afternoon’s gray haze, then to her doll. She held the doll’s yarn hair in her fingers, intertwining the strings as she sat in silence. Her brows rose as she smiled and looked back at the woman, who was still gazing at her.

“Do you want to sit down?” The woman did not move, or even respond. “It’s made out of a tree, see?” The little girl knocked on the wood of the bench.

Blank blue eyes fell to the bench. Pale fingers tightened on the yellowed envelope as she turned her body away from the direction of the cliff. The little girl patted the space beside her, silently asking the woman once again if she wished to sit. The woman in the blue dress regarded the little girl and the bench with her blank eyes, and still she said nothing. As the little girl turned away and continued to play with her doll the woman’s feet began to take her to the bench, the rest of her body rigid and unwavering. Her hair and dress now billowed silently towards the trees she had emerged from. She walked to the bench and sat beside the little girl, placing the envelope on the bench beside her, bringing her knees up as far as she could and wrapping her arms around them. She held her two bare feet together beneath her, and stared out across the sea.

“Why do you look sad?” said the little girl. The woman kept her gaze on the waves below. She parted her lips as if to speak, but said nothing. The little girl thought she heard a noise, but it was no more than an inaudible whisper.

“Huh?” she said. She leaned over, bringing the side of her head closer to the woman’s lips. The woman was also slightly louder the second time, or so the girl thought. Narrow lips shaped and stretched as each word was slowly uttered.

“Lost… someone. Someone… very close… I loved.”

“Lost in the woods?” The little girl gestured to the grove of trees behind them with her empty hand. “My dad says if I get lost I should scream to high heaven and someone will come to find me.”

“Not lost.”

“Oh.” The little girl turned to look at her hands, fingers intertwined in front of her knees. “Are you lost?”

The woman closed her eyes and turned her head once to the left, once to the right, and stopped when she was facing the sea again.

“Not lost.”

“Oh, okay.” The little girl’s eyes drifted along the woman from her head to her feet. “Are you cold?” The woman opened her eyes and nodded.

“My dad says I should never go out without a jacket because the food in my stomach will freeze into ice cubes. Didn’t your dad ever tell you that?” The woman remained still, and the little girl did not press the question. She sat next to the woman for another few moments in silence, and then began to unwrap the scarf around her neck. The woman turned her head to watch when she noticed the movement near her. When the scarf was removed the little girl turned to the woman and held it up.

“Here, you can use it. My dad says I should be helpful or I won’t get any Butterfingers after dinner.” The woman inched her hand towards the scarf and touched her fingers to it. Her eyes widened, just slightly, as she moved her hand closer to the material, placing her hand flat against the woven garment. Eventually she coiled her fingers around it, and brought it to her knees. The little girl watched and giggled as she observed the woman’s ineptitude with a scarf.

“No, no, that’s not where it goes. Watch.” She stood and pulled the scarf from the woman’s hand, then walked around behind her. The woman turned slightly as if to watch what she was doing, but not enough to actually see. The little girl stood behind her and wrapped the scarf around the woman’s neck, leaving both ends dangling across her chest. She then pulled the woman’s hair out from beneath the fabric before returning to her seat, smiling all the way.

“See, that’s how. It will warm you up, watch.” The woman brought one hand to the scarf and felt its rough edges, tracing strands of fabric from top to bottom. As she did this the little girl picked up her doll again and resumed running her fingers through the yarn.

“Have you ever had Butterfingers?” she then said. “They’re reallygood. They’re the best candy ever.” The little girl smiled widely as she pondered Butterfingers. “I bet my dad brought some Butterfingers today, too. They’re going to be so good!” The woman remained silent. Obviously, she was not interested in Butterfingers. The little girl smirked and pursed her lips as she thought. Then, she said, “Who did you lose?”

“What?” said the woman. The little girl was glad that the woman was speaking loudly.

“Who did you lose? You said you lost someone.”

“Someone I loved…” The woman furrowed her brows, as if to make certain before completing her response.“… man.”

“Ooh, like your boyfriend?” said the little girl mockingly. The woman nodded in her slow, deliberate manner.

“Why did you love him?”

“Loved… him. He loved me.”

“But why?” asked the little girl. The woman lowered her eyes to her hands, which she placed in her lap.

“He loved me.”

“Oh.” The little girl thought for a moment. “Was he a good man? My dad’s a good man,” she said. “My mom says so.”

“Lucky, your mother,” she said. The woman looked away again, back to the mountains across the sea.

“What’s your name?” asked the little girl.

“Name?” She looked down at her hands once more. “Don’t recall… name?”

The girl smiled and looked at the woman incredulously.

“Everyone has a name.”

“Don’t recall,” said the woman. “Your name?”

“Jan.”

“Nice name… Jan.”

“I don’t think it’s nice,” she said. “Everyone calls me Jan-In-A-Can. My dad says they don’t like their names either, so they make fun of mine.” She poked her doll, then said, “Did you know that Jan means ‘gracious’?”

The left side of the woman’s lips rose. It was not quite a smile, but it was more than the blank, thin line that she had worn since she appeared from the trees.

“Dad says?”

“Nope,” said the girl solemnly. “My mom.”

“Funny little girl,” said the woman.

Jan scratched her dark head and stretched her legs out across the sandstone angled down towards the cliff. She stared at her feet for a moment, unsure of how to respond. Beyond her feet she noticed that the gray clouds were getting thicker, and darker. They filled the sky now and there were no light patches between the dark patches, like before. It was just dark everywhere.

The woman rose, then, and Jan did not even see her move to stand up, but she was. The envelope was once again in her hands.

“Must go.” She looked to her left, down at Jan.

“You have to leave?”

“Very sad,” said the woman.

“You have to leave ‘cause you’re sad?” asked Jan. The woman nodded.

“Cannot stay here… without him. No life… without him.” Then she added, “you come, too?”

Jan said her dad said not too wander too far.

“Not far.”

Jan squeezed her lips together as she considered the proposal. “Well, okay, but only if it’s not far away.” She approached the woman, who’s left arm was slightly raised towards Jan. Jan reached out and took her hand.

“Ouch, you’re still really cold! You should buy gloves at the store.” The woman closed her grip on the little girl’s fingers and began to lead her forward, away from the grove of trees and bench, towards the sea and the gray mountains.

“Where are we going?” asked Jan.

“A better place. Quiet place.”

“Quiet place?” said Jan. “That sounds boring.” The woman led her along in silence. The roar of the waves beneath the cliff grew louder, and Jan clutched her yarn-haired doll tightly as the wind grew colder and stronger. The woman’s dress waved along behind her. Her hair was as gray streamers, wildly flying while the oncoming wind grew fiercer. With every step she took it grew colder, and more dark, or at least it seemed so to Jan.

The little girl plodded along behind her, approaching the cliff’s edge. “Are we going to see the water? My dad says I shouldn’t go too close to the water without him or the mermaids will come and take me away.”

“Yes… sea is there. The sea takes away sadness.”

Jan looked down at her feet as they walked along. She noticed how white and clean the woman’s feet looked, walking across the stone. When she lifted her eyes she saw that they were close to the edge now, and could almost see the waves directly below the cliff. The mist rose higher and wafted around Jan’s head, causing her to shiver. She craned her neck to look down when the rocks jutting out from the sea below became visible.

“My dad says that when I’m sad, I should remember that there are people who love me, and everything will be okay.” She looked up at the woman. “Don’t you have anyone else who loves you?”

The woman stopped, erect and standing utterly still. The cessation of movement caused Jan to drop her doll in front of her onto the layers of shale stone. The doll’s feet folded down along the cliff’s edge, towards the water, and would have fallen right over if they had been just slightly further ahead.

Jan looked up at her and winced, partly due to the wind and the hair in her eyes, and partly to try and figure out why the woman stopped. “Hey, we’re almost going to see the water. Why’d we stop?” The irritation in her voice was not obvious to the woman, though Jan thinks she made it clear enough. “The water’s just there over the edge. Let’s see if the mermaids are there!”

A man’s voice called from far away, behind them. Jan turned and grinned, then reached down to pick up her doll. She pulled her hand away from the woman, which took more effort than she thought was required. “I have to go. My dad’s calling me.” As she walked away she paused, and looked back at the woman in the blue dress, who remained still, facing the sea and the gray mountains. She waited to see the woman’s face but the woman did not turn.

Jan could not wait too long when her dad was calling her, so she said “Bye!” and disappeared into the grove of trees.

The wind was howling, calling to the woman who remained at the edge of the cliff. Her loosely curled golden strands danced about her and occasionally stung her moist cheeks. The woman’s face remained blank and free of expression. She stood there for a long while, staring out across the sea. After some time she turned, away from the seaside cliff and back towards the grove of trees. She silently walked back across the bare stone to where grass was the more common footing, and she too disappeared into the grove of trees that she emerged from. Behind her there remained a yellowed envelope, caught between the thick blades of a tuft of grass growing in a crag in the stone. The wind from the sea blew furiously and took hold of the envelope, pulling it away from the bench, away from the jagged tufts of grass scattered along the stone terrain, and down and away from the seaside cliff. The envelope and letter inside fell to the violent foam below and were sucked into the frenzy, disappearing into nothing.

When Jan returned with her dad they found the violet-flecked gray scarf on the rounded log bench, clinging to the splinters. Jan’s dad picked up the scarf and wrapped it around her neck, then kissed her on the forehead. He said Jan should never go here again because she might fall into the ocean and get eaten up by sharks, but that she is as clever as a fox for making up such a story. He took her hand and together they turned and disappeared into the grove of trees.

A blanket of gray clouds was always draped over the sky at that time of the afternoon, and the sun was nowhere to be seen when the woman emerged from the grove of trees. The wisps of her pallid blue dress trailed behind her. Her feet, what little of them was visible beneath the dress, were bare. The curls of her eerily shimmery locks cascaded down past her shoulders and likewise trailed along behind her as she stepped forward along the tufted ground. The blank expression on her face did little to convey her purpose as she neared the edge of the seaside cliff.

In her hands she held an open envelope. It was that envelope which caught the girl’s attention.

“Hi,” said the girl.

As she neared the edge of the cliff the woman slowed and turned her head to the left. There was a little girl sitting on a log, or rather a bench carved out of a fallen log, a short distance from the edge of the cliff. Her back was bent over. She wore a gray scarf flecked with strands of violet, and a simple purple coat coupled with a pair of denim jeans. Her feet, unlike the woman’s, were protected from the cold ground by a pair of yellow and white polyester shoes. In her hands she held a doll adorned in yellow yarn and a blue skirt. The girl’s tussled black hair gently waved about as the breeze from the late afternoon blew past her.

She had watched the woman approach with the envelope in her hands and turned to look at her, and she seemed nice so the girl thought it best to say, “Hi.” The little girl continued to look at the woman even when she did not respond. Her blank stare made her seem despondent, or as the girl might have said she looked “real sad.”

The woman looked back at the little girl, blue gaze locked on her. She said nothing. The little girl could only look back for so long before averting her gaze to mountains across the sea in front of her, nearly hidden by the afternoon’s gray haze, then to her doll. She held the doll’s yarn hair in her fingers, intertwining the strings as she sat in silence. Her brows rose as she smiled and looked back at the woman, who was still gazing at her.

“Do you want to sit down?” The woman did not move, or even respond. “It’s made out of a tree, see?” The little girl knocked on the wood of the bench.

Blank blue eyes fell to the bench. Pale fingers tightened on the yellowed envelope as she turned her body away from the direction of the cliff. The little girl patted the space beside her, silently asking the woman once again if she wished to sit. The woman in the blue dress regarded the little girl and the bench with her blank eyes, and still she said nothing. As the little girl turned away and continued to play with her doll the woman’s feet began to take her to the bench, the rest of her body rigid and unwavering. Her hair and dress now billowed silently towards the trees she had emerged from. She walked to the bench and sat beside the little girl, placing the envelope on the bench beside her, bringing her knees up as far as she could and wrapping her arms around them. She held her two bare feet together beneath her, and stared out across the sea.

“Why do you look sad?” said the little girl. The woman kept her gaze on the waves below. She parted her lips as if to speak, but said nothing. The little girl thought she heard a noise, but it was no more than an inaudible whisper.

“Huh?” she said. She leaned over, bringing the side of her head closer to the woman’s lips. The woman was also slightly louder the second time, or so the girl thought. Narrow lips shaped and stretched as each word was slowly uttered.

“Lost… someone. Someone… very close… I loved.”

“Lost in the woods?” The little girl gestured to the grove of trees behind them with her empty hand. “My dad says if I get lost I should scream to high heaven and someone will come to find me.”

“Not lost.”

“Oh.” The little girl turned to look at her hands, fingers intertwined in front of her knees. “Are you lost?”

The woman closed her eyes and turned her head once to the left, once to the right, and stopped when she was facing the sea again.

“Not lost.”

“Oh, okay.” The little girl’s eyes drifted along the woman from her head to her feet. “Are you cold?” The woman opened her eyes and nodded.

“My dad says I should never go out without a jacket because the food in my stomach will freeze into ice cubes. Didn’t your dad ever tell you that?” The woman remained still, and the little girl did not press the question. She sat next to the woman for another few moments in silence, and then began to unwrap the scarf around her neck. The woman turned her head to watch when she noticed the movement near her. When the scarf was removed the little girl turned to the woman and held it up.

“Here, you can use it. My dad says I should be helpful or I won’t get any Butterfingers after dinner.” The woman inched her hand towards the scarf and touched her fingers to it. Her eyes widened, just slightly, as she moved her hand closer to the material, placing her hand flat against the woven garment. Eventually she coiled her fingers around it, and brought it to her knees. The little girl watched and giggled as she observed the woman’s ineptitude with a scarf.

“No, no, that’s not where it goes. Watch.” She stood and pulled the scarf from the woman’s hand, then walked around behind her. The woman turned slightly as if to watch what she was doing, but not enough to actually see. The little girl stood behind her and wrapped the scarf around the woman’s neck, leaving both ends dangling across her chest. She then pulled the woman’s hair out from beneath the fabric before returning to her seat, smiling all the way.

“See, that’s how. It will warm you up, watch.” The woman brought one hand to the scarf and felt its rough edges, tracing strands of fabric from top to bottom. As she did this the little girl picked up her doll again and resumed running her fingers through the yarn.

“Have you ever had Butterfingers?” she then said. “They’re reallygood. They’re the best candy ever.” The little girl smiled widely as she pondered Butterfingers. “I bet my dad brought some Butterfingers today, too. They’re going to be so good!” The woman remained silent. Obviously, she was not interested in Butterfingers. The little girl smirked and pursed her lips as she thought. Then, she said, “Who did you lose?”

“What?” said the woman. The little girl was glad that the woman was speaking loudly.

“Who did you lose? You said you lost someone.”

“Someone I loved…” The woman furrowed her brows, as if to make certain before completing her response.“… man.”

“Ooh, like your boyfriend?” said the little girl mockingly. The woman nodded in her slow, deliberate manner.

“Why did you love him?”

“Loved… him. He loved me.”

“But why?” asked the little girl. The woman lowered her eyes to her hands, which she placed in her lap.

“He loved me.”

“Oh.” The little girl thought for a moment. “Was he a good man? My dad’s a good man,” she said. “My mom says so.”

“Lucky, your mother,” she said. The woman looked away again, back to the mountains across the sea.

“What’s your name?” asked the little girl.

“Name?” She looked down at her hands once more. “Don’t recall… name?”

The girl smiled and looked at the woman incredulously.

“Everyone has a name.”

“Don’t recall,” said the woman. “Your name?”

“Jan.”

“Nice name… Jan.”

“I don’t think it’s nice,” she said. “Everyone calls me Jan-In-A-Can. My dad says they don’t like their names either, so they make fun of mine.” She poked her doll, then said, “Did you know that Jan means ‘gracious’?”

The left side of the woman’s lips rose. It was not quite a smile, but it was more than the blank, thin line that she had worn since she appeared from the trees.

“Dad says?”

“Nope,” said the girl solemnly. “My mom.”

“Funny little girl,” said the woman.

Jan scratched her dark head and stretched her legs out across the sandstone angled down towards the cliff. She stared at her feet for a moment, unsure of how to respond. Beyond her feet she noticed that the gray clouds were getting thicker, and darker. They filled the sky now and there were no light patches between the dark patches, like before. It was just dark everywhere.

The woman rose, then, and Jan did not even see her move to stand up, but she was. The envelope was once again in her hands.

“Must go.” She looked to her left, down at Jan.

“You have to leave?”

“Very sad,” said the woman.

“You have to leave ‘cause you’re sad?” asked Jan. The woman nodded.

“Cannot stay here… without him. No life… without him.” Then she added, “you come, too?”

Jan said her dad said not too wander too far.

“Not far.”

Jan squeezed her lips together as she considered the proposal. “Well, okay, but only if it’s not far away.” She approached the woman, who’s left arm was slightly raised towards Jan. Jan reached out and took her hand.

“Ouch, you’re still really cold! You should buy gloves at the store.” The woman closed her grip on the little girl’s fingers and began to lead her forward, away from the grove of trees and bench, towards the sea and the gray mountains.

“Where are we going?” asked Jan.

“A better place. Quiet place.”

“Quiet place?” said Jan. “That sounds boring.” The woman led her along in silence. The roar of the waves beneath the cliff grew louder, and Jan clutched her yarn-haired doll tightly as the wind grew colder and stronger. The woman’s dress waved along behind her. Her hair was as gray streamers, wildly flying while the oncoming wind grew fiercer. With every step she took it grew colder, and more dark, or at least it seemed so to Jan.

The little girl plodded along behind her, approaching the cliff’s edge. “Are we going to see the water? My dad says I shouldn’t go too close to the water without him or the mermaids will come and take me away.”

“Yes… sea is there. The sea takes away sadness.”

Jan looked down at her feet as they walked along. She noticed how white and clean the woman’s feet looked, walking across the stone. When she lifted her eyes she saw that they were close to the edge now, and could almost see the waves directly below the cliff. The mist rose higher and wafted around Jan’s head, causing her to shiver. She craned her neck to look down when the rocks jutting out from the sea below became visible.

“My dad says that when I’m sad, I should remember that there are people who love me, and everything will be okay.” She looked up at the woman. “Don’t you have anyone else who loves you?”

The woman stopped, erect and standing utterly still. The cessation of movement caused Jan to drop her doll in front of her onto the layers of shale stone. The doll’s feet folded down along the cliff’s edge, towards the water, and would have fallen right over if they had been just slightly further ahead.

Jan looked up at her and winced, partly due to the wind and the hair in her eyes, and partly to try and figure out why the woman stopped. “Hey, we’re almost going to see the water. Why’d we stop?” The irritation in her voice was not obvious to the woman, though Jan thinks she made it clear enough. “The water’s just there over the edge. Let’s see if the mermaids are there!”

A man’s voice called from far away, behind them. Jan turned and grinned, then reached down to pick up her doll. She pulled her hand away from the woman, which took more effort than she thought was required. “I have to go. My dad’s calling me.” As she walked away she paused, and looked back at the woman in the blue dress, who remained still, facing the sea and the gray mountains. She waited to see the woman’s face but the woman did not turn.

Jan could not wait too long when her dad was calling her, so she said “Bye!” and disappeared into the grove of trees.

The wind was howling, calling to the woman who remained at the edge of the cliff. Her loosely curled golden strands danced about her and occasionally stung her moist cheeks. The woman’s face remained blank and free of expression. She stood there for a long while, staring out across the sea. After some time she turned, away from the seaside cliff and back towards the grove of trees. She silently walked back across the bare stone to where grass was the more common footing, and she too disappeared into the grove of trees that she emerged from. Behind her there remained a yellowed envelope, caught between the thick blades of a tuft of grass growing in a crag in the stone. The wind from the sea blew furiously and took hold of the envelope, pulling it away from the bench, away from the jagged tufts of grass scattered along the stone terrain, and down and away from the seaside cliff. The envelope and letter inside fell to the violent foam below and were sucked into the frenzy, disappearing into nothing.

When Jan returned with her dad they found the violet-flecked gray scarf on the rounded log bench, clinging to the splinters. Jan’s dad picked up the scarf and wrapped it around her neck, then kissed her on the forehead. He said Jan should never go here again because she might fall into the ocean and get eaten up by sharks, but that she is as clever as a fox for making up such a story. He took her hand and together they turned and disappeared into the grove of trees.

God, look at that sun shine. The sun is beautiful. Hell, everything is beautiful. The rows of multicolored columns in my bookshelf are beautiful. That black spider currying up the wall in the corner is beautiful. The smell of last night’s General Cho’s Chicken served over white rice is beautiful. Everything under the sky in heaven and above the fires in hell is absolutely, unbelievably beautiful. But these are just small observations whose beauty is amplified by the presence of the true beauty that lies beside me, with her arm resting across my stomach and her head on my chest. Her mix of dark and highlit strands swept behind her head and to the side, near my armpit. A thigh over my leg, a slender foot resting on my shin. The smell of her sweat, smell of her hair. All of it, every bit. Beautiful.

“Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?” A wind chime, singing the melodies of the angels by way of the heavenly voice from between her two thin pink lips. I’m so caught up in the beauty of existence that I don’t listen.

“What?”

“I asked, will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s joking, I’m sure. It’s just such a strange thing to ask. But, as she pulls away to look at me, I see that she’s not smiling. In fact, she looks pretty damn serious about it. I take a deep breath, making sure my chest rises and settles, and move my arm higher until I can feel her shoulder blade against the hair on my forearm. It’s something I’ve learned over the years; show that you’re listening when you don’t know what to say.

Finally, I realize I may as well voice what’s in my mind

“What do you mean, ‘will God forgive us’?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “I mean, do you think He’ll forgive us? You know, for having sex?”

Forgive us for having sex? Having sex? What is she, fifteen? She wants forgiveness for experiencing the most beautiful, intimate, passionate aspect of human existence? How can she even think of that now, as we lie together in bed, draped over one another as two bodies melded into one. And good lord, look at her eyes…

“Why would he have to forgive us? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe you don’t think we’ve done something wrong, but He says we have.”

This is getting funny.

“He ‘says,’ really? Did he speak to you?”

“Of coure not. Please don’t mock me. My relationship with God means a lot to me.”

Jesus fuckin’ Christ. “I just don’t get the question. Are you saying this feels wrong to you? Am I evil to you? Do you think I’m here to corrupt your soul?”

“Well, you are being really harsh about it.” The rims of her eyelids are glistening. “You know I’m a Christian.”

I do? I must’ve missed that during the preamble last night.

“It means a lot to me, okay? Please, just tell me what you think. Will God forgive us?”

She’s joking. She has to be. “Look, I get it. You’re a religious person. But you’re kidding, right?”

She pulls away from me then, moving her one leg to the floor followed by the other. Hair draped around her face as she peers down for a second to ensure her footing, then uses her arm to push herself upright. I’m lying there on my back, naked, watching as she climbs over me; there is not a thought in my head.

She walks her dainty self to the other end of the room. Pitter, her feet pitter across the floor. Pumf, pumf, pumf. The soft heel-toe that only small and delicate girls can accomplish. Breasts don’t pitter, but just slightly jiggle. Hers aren’t as large as others, so it’s just slightly. Watching her thighs clench, buttocks tighten with every pumf. She pitters across the hardwood floor of my apartment. Past the corner of the bed, near the fridge and bathroom door. She’s going for the bookshelf?

Her fingers touch on the books, from one to the next.

“Where’s your Bible?”

Fuck me, she is not kidding. And how does she know I even have a Bible?

“Why?”

“I want to read you a passage.” Amazing. She’s actually going to go for a sermon.

“Why does it fuckin’ matter?” Really, why does it? “I suppose the rule is no sex before marriage? So, we’re breakin’ religious law. What’re we to do now? Repent? Kneel and beg for his almighty fuckin’ mercy?”

“You don’t have to shout, or curse.”

I’m shouting?

“Yes, you are, and it’s very disrespectful.”

For a couple of moments I relapse, and it’s Sunday school all over again. I see the steeple of the church as I did every Sunday morning for years. The sheen of those colored stained glass windows in the early morning sun staring out over the crowd of people below, waiting for the doors to open for Sunday service. My parents and older brother go to the area with the picnic tables and talk to the adults while my little sister and I are sent to the large building next to the church where they teach about God and the Bible. The lower half of the walls painted brown and the upper half painted beige along with the majority of the building. We shuffle in and memorize poems that teach us lessons while Mrs. Mallory scolds us if we talk during reading time or form the wrong cross with our thumbs and index fingers. But I’m only there for a few of moments before I turn my attention to the sweet little Bible thumper working her way through my miniature library.

“Look, this is ridiculous. Come back to bed. It’s early, it’s sunny,” at least it was, “and you and I can talk this out without resorting to spouting scripture. Will you come back?”

Not a word. Where’s the effusive gal who smiled playfully when I asked her if she knew what the fish in the tank behind the bartender were thinking.

“What are they thinking?” she’d asked.

“They’re thinking, ‘What’re the tall fellow and gorgeous gal sitting at that bar thinking?’”

She’d laughed, even grinned. She didn’t have to, but she did. Where’s the girl who told me about her escapades as a rambunctious college student and accepted the drinks I bought? She wasn’t a prude about discussing the sexual repression of women in the Middle East. Where’d she go? I want her back.

She finds it on her own. The Bible, which I’ve been promising myself to read (eventually), is brand new if slightly dusty. It’s one of those study bibles with footnotes which may as well be titled “The Bible for Dummies.”

“Have you ever even read this?” She’s leafing through the pages now, that same serious expression still twisting the beauty of the smile that shined down on me no more than an hour ago. She settles on a page and looks up, holding the book with one hand and using the index finger from her other hand to keep her place.

“You have heard that the law of Moses says, Do not commit adultery. But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye – even if it is your good eye – causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses to glance at me. I have no words. I’m not even here.

“And if your hand – even if it is your stronger hand – causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses again, holding the opened book against her flattened stomach and ribs. The cover of the book rests just an inch or two below her breasts.

“So I ask you, again: Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s fucking naked! She’s giving me a sermon and standing there at the foot of the bed with the Bible in her hand pressed against her stomach, and she’s fuckin’ naked. God, this moment is beautiful. I could cum (again) thinking of this moment. If my mind were a VHS tape… well, you know about the worn out points in VHS tapes.

She shakes her head gently, places the Bible back on the bookshelf, and turns around. Son of a bitch, she’s picking up her clothes.

“Wait, wait! Yes, all right? God’s going to forgive us. We are sharing our love with one another – physically and spiritually. That can’t be wrong.”

She slips on her panties, the lacy black pair that landed on the counter in the middle of the night. I’m losing her.

“We can pray! I mean, that’s how it works, isn’t it? We pray for forgiveness.”

Slinking back into the black dress. She pulls it up to her waist, stomach and chest still bared. One arm beneath a strap.

“I didn’t ask you to pray. I asked you if you thought God would forgive–”

“And I said I think he would.” Sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet over my lap. “He will forgive us, because as I said we’ve done nothing wrong. We are two people, and for a night we shared ourselves. Please,” patting the bed, “come back.”

That one strap over her shoulder, looking me in the eyes like someone looks at a faraway sign or really tiny words. I don’t know what to say.

She sighs and quickly pulls up the other strap. “The blood of the wicked can be as sweet as virgin honey.”

What? What kind of response is that?

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You’re a weak man, sweetie. You should work on that.” She smiles. She fucking smiles, then looks away and puts on her flats. The dainty feet don’t pitter as she walks to the door and shuts it, loudly, behind her.

I’m sitting on my bed, wondering what the hell just happened, and all I can think is “fuckin’ God.”

Black ruffled dress, dark hat and ribbons flowing, one fishnet sleeve on the left arm, the right as bare as all sin, and hands as liquid love.  She steps into the fading rays of an overcast day looking out over the baked denizens of aural delight who appear for one show and witness another in the towering Goddess and her shorter white escort.  The pig-tailed delight grows tall, tall to heaven, and fills the room when there are no walls.  Smiles as she mingles in the crowd of onlookers and pauses when one of them wants a memento.  They all watch her walk along the path between the bodies, elegantly, and so easily that it makes them wish they could be as tall as the Goddess and hopefully half as beautiful in a tattered Victorian rag.  They never will, not like her, and she is blessed in this fact.

The trick to the grand show is in the crinkle.  No one notices, but that is where it is.  She looks down at a child as she looks down at a man and the crinkle at the corner of her mouth catches them all by surprise.  The Goddess smiles down upon them and they thank her silently.  It makes her like them and above them, above them all.

A little girl waves and the Goddess slows time as she waves back, left and right and right and left, fingers flowing as threads in space, and she is lost.  Visions of blinding sunlight and starshine filling her eyes.  A kingdom, far from here, far from now, and she knows that she is meant to be there.  She can almost reach it, high as she is.  It is there, and she can smell the burning embers of the warm fire that she must deserve for being here, and being beautiful and tall and elegant.  She does not just parade herself; she dwells among them.  She brings such joy into their hearts.  They love her so much and no one else understands that the Goddess presents the possibilities of endless beauty and in her steady lumbering stride she brings them all into her bubble, into her world.  She is good to them and they do not demand anything of her because they love her, even if they do not speak it aloud.

A mere thundering boom cracks the bubble, and a little girl’s attention is called to the stage back on the world’s surface.

Performers – men with guitars and women on tambourines – on stage to begin their show where the crowd begins to form upon them.  The grandest woman, the goddess, walks beside them, unnoticed and a distant memory.  A photograph, a smile, a caress of a hand – her remains among the people who dwelled in her space (for a time) and lifted her to great heights.  Her divinity crushed by so much interference and mic checks.

She dawdles along, out of view, and her companion closely in tow until they come upon a barren dirt-topped layover behind the food service tents.

“Hey,” says the Goddess.  “How’s your leg?”

The shorter white lovely reaches down, undoing straps one and the other, then lowers herself further until she is mere human.  She smiles up at the Goddess and touches upon her thigh.

“It’s not too bad, just needed time off the poles.”

“Yea, well don’t push it.”

She mustn’t, or risk not returning to her place in heaven.

“Yea I know.  I’ll keep off it this week, I promise.”  The woman, a deceptively small blonde beneath a curtain of powder, gathers her legs and walks toward the parking lot as she waves goodbye.

“You want to come?” she adds.  “I’m meeting Steph for dinner.”

“No,” says the Goddess.  “No, I’m okay.  I need to go to the store and pick up a few things.”

“Okay.  Call me tomorrow?”

The black-ruffled Goddess nods and says goodbye.

The sun rolls along the glass dome as the thunder above gets louder, and the cheers fill the air all around.  The Goddess’ strands fall free and slide across her face when the wind hugs her and urges her to stay where it can be with her.  She glances out across the top of the tents and sees a girl perched atop a young man’s shoulders, arms high in the air.  Beyond is a woman in a long coat coaxing a high-pitched screech from smoke-choked lungs.

The Goddess tells the wind “no” before loosening the straps and lowering herself.  The noises below envelop her further, all that she is.

Smiles and screams for the siren usurper.

Dirt gathers along the fringes of her dress; the woman in the black dress yawns.  What a glorious dream… what a glorious day.  Her feet ache and the red sheen upon her face reminds her of what she forgot.  She enters an empty tent and lifts her black bag from a pile.  The black dress, and the hat, and single fishnet sleeve come off.  Torn jeans and a t-shirt that reads TIDE then adorn her and make her more human than she cares to consider.  The ribbons in her hair fall to the ground as she shakes her curls loose and sighs through her nose.  Beer in a cooler keeps her company until she must leave.  Bitter and calming, like a sweet embrace from a hated friend.

When the day ends the workers dismantle the stage and ravel the cords, criss-crossing across the grounds where hoppers and dancers and arm flailers bounced to the music and lived for the moment.  As life resumes and the future beckons the revelers depart and leave behind the sense of wonder and freedom inside the beer cans, cigarette butts, and rumpled paper bags on the grass.

The woman in torn jeans and a t-shirt exits the tent and she is Mel.  No longer the Goddess… no longer above.  Long aluminum poles in hand, she exits the tent and waves to familiars on her way to the parking lot.  Her brown Honda Accord with the faded hood and red tape for a taillight does not beckon nor carry her on wings of golden feathered silk to the birthplace of light and the eternal loving embrace.  She drives among people, and cars, and dirty little animals, until she stops at a store near her home.

“That’ll be three-fifty,” says the clerk.

A bottle of sunblock in a bag on the front seat as she drives to her apartment over the hill on La Brea, near Hollywood where dreams go to die.  Near Hollywood where her boyfriend Kevin finds her tired and not in the mood.

“C’mon, Mel.  Look at you.  I don’t get why you keep doing this.  You come back tired and depressed every time.  If this stilts shit is so much fun why’re you always like this when you get back?”

“I know you don’t get it. There are lots of things you don’t get, Kev.”

“Look, I don’t want to get into a fight about this again.  You do it until you realize there’s no point.  I’ll support you…” her hair in his hand, “as long as you like.”  He kisses her neck and she turns away towards the television; there is a commercial for laundry soap.

“There’s always a point.  Good or bad, there’s always a point.”

“Don’t get poetic on me now, Mel, or I’ll really be lost.”  He sits beside her and holds her hand.  “You know I care about you, babe.  I just want you happy.  Is it too much to ask to see you happy?”

She crinkles the corner of her mouth and allows him to kiss her, softly then with increasing pressure.  He gets high along her thigh before she pulls away.  Kevin pleads and he charms; she relents.  Mel stares past his glistening ear and dark hair and she notices that a stain on the ceiling is shaped like a dog paddling along a lake, probably looking for a stick that was never there.

She said it would not take too long, all the make-up and the clothes and the hair, but it took too long.  Forty five minutes too long.  The barbecue would not miss us, but I would miss the first chance at the bacon-wrapped hot dogs.  Those don’t last very long at one of these barbecue events and they certainly wait for no man who waits for his girlfriend.  All I can do is idle in despair from the kitchen to the living room, occasionally glancing at the clock on the mantle to see if it matches the clock on my wrist.  Patience is not one of my virtues.

Nor, evidently, is memory.

Sylvia finally walks out and I’m reminded of why I never mind that she takes so long to get ready.  Her unusually shimmery brown hair (byproduct of a costly kitchen skylight) is tied back and away from her shoulders in a simple ponytail, which allows the purple sweater-blouse thing to show off what she knows she has in ample supply.  The black denim wrapped around her legs stretches and creases to the point of vulgarity.  As she nonchalantly approaches I note that her demure eyes and steady, low-heeled step show no sign of remorse.  Barbecue, even bacon-wrapped barbecue, means less to her than the presence and air of a beautifully tardy woman.

And yet, no matter the depth of my observations, I have to ask.

“What took so long?”

She smirks and picks up her oversized wallet.  “I could not find the address that you lost, and then I had to get directions online.”

I’m certain the humility on my face is missed as I turn away in a faint toward the door.  “It’s what I get for writing things on matchbooks.”

“Spending time at the bar, are you?”  More curiosity than accusation in her tone, but too much experience with the latter puts me on the defensive.

“Just passing time with the boss.  It got us invited to his house for this didn’t it?”

“Yes,” she says.  “It did.”  I hold the door for her and pretend not to notice the glare as she steps out into the sun.  The afternoon wanes and almost beckons us to the car for more moments of awkward bliss.

Car silence is unlike any other kind.  The space only allows for so much lack of sound to exist before it is echoed back, worsened by the proximity of sounds outside the car.  The honk of a horn is all too loud and the reverberation of every engine creates a very small space in which to sit silently and avoid speaking.  To prevent agitation at what should be a pleasant gathering I decide to burst the bubble.

“Do you suppose President Bush could have defeated the Batman during his presidency?”

She turns to look at me and I can feel the retort building, but being in our ripe old twenties we have learned to avoid the argumentative pitfalls that young couples fall into.  She gets my meaning and turns back to the windshield.

“Only if Bush conscripts Batman and fiendishly masterminds a plot in which Batman believes he is fighting a foreign enemy and unknowingly defeats himself.”

I tell her that I don’t believe Bush could have done that on his own.

“What did he ever?”  I see her smiling in the windshield.  My day is suddenly dramatically improved.  The sun’s rays are therapeutic, the honking horns are music, and the barbecue, bacon-wrapped or otherwise, will be that much sweeter.

My hand rests on her thigh as we sit in traffic and watch the backs of other cars.  She looks to the side, where fields of rooftops appear beyond the concrete banks.  Her eyes dart from one to the next, searching for one that could be like the one that will someday be ours.  Sylvia’s eyes behind darkly shimmering glass.  I squeeze the coarse black denim beneath my hand.  Her muscle flexes responsively.

The sun stares at us in the million-mile stretch.  More waiting.

“Give me your hand for a second.”

She turns to look at me, hesitates.  “Why?” she asks.  I still surprise her.

I tell her I’m curious.

Sylvia’s hand rises and hangs in the air, limp fingers pointing to the silent CD player.  Her hand is small, light.  Nails are manicured, crafted by a Korean artisan of local renown.  Tiny lines and wrinkles where the joints meet.  As I run my hand along the surface the fine hairs act as conduits, bring a series of moments into view.  Memories of a dip in the water before she dives in.  Holding a purse.  Gently nestling a glass between the fingers and cradling it on her palm.  A smile through orbed glass.  A fine hand, with many memories to its credit.

“Your hand is the start,” I say, moving further along her arm.  Slightly thicker hairs line her forearm.  Soft wrinkles on the inside of her elbow.  “It’s the start of the path.”  Up along her bare arm, toward the purple fabric that begins at her shoulder.  Her eyes follow my hand until she moves.

“No, no,” says Sylvia.  “We’re on hands.”  She takes me and moves me back down to the start.  Holds me still.  “We’re at the starting line.”

“Why?” I ask.  She purses her lips, and thinks.

I wait.

“To get a sense of where we are,” she finally says.

“To torture me,” I tell her.  I hold her and feel her palm with my thumb, gently kneading.  “Your hand is too enticing.  It pulls me into you, into your heart.”

She chuckles at me then. It only hurts a little, and I don’t allow it to show.  “You are too preoccupied with the heart,” she says.  “Right now, right here, just focus on my hand.”  She brings my hand back down to her thigh, placed over hers.

I tell her I’ll try.

Holding her hand I look at it, swaying forward as the car stops again.  It is then that I catch a glimpse of my hand over hers.  It is a worn hand.  Marks along the surface.  Veins.  Hair and tendons moving at the slightest twitch of a finger.  My unevenly colored hide in stark contrast to her smoothly pale skin.

“Look at my hand.”

“What about it?” she asks.

“Look at it.  There are wrinkles.  Hair.  Ridges and dents and scars.  It’s the ugliest hand I’ve ever seen.  How could you possibly allow me to touch you?”

She looks down at my hand and pulls away, repositioning her own hand over mine.  Most hands are warm.  Hers is searing.

“Because it is your hand,” she says.  “I don’t allow you to touch me.”  She turns and her lips brush against mine as she kisses the side of my face.

“I want you to touch me,” she whispers.

Reassurance.

She returns to her side and looks at me.  Several feet of asphalt pass underneath as we sit in pleasant silence, quite unlike the beginning of our drive.  A 65 MPH sign moves from the front to the side to slightly behind.

She holds me in her silence until she finally speaks.  “Your hand is yours. I’ve watched you use your hand.  I’ve felt you.  It is rough, and wrinkly, and hairy.  Your hand is yours, and after all this time it’s also mine.”  She brings my hand up to her chest.

“I could do whatever I want with my hand,” she says.

I nod.

She raises our hand to her mouth.  A gentle press of lips on hairy, dented skin.

God, look at that sun shine. The sun is beautiful. Hell, everything is beautiful. The rows of multicolored columns in my bookshelf are beautiful. That black spider currying up the wall in the corner is beautiful. The smell of last night’s General Cho’s Chicken served over white rice is beautiful. Everything under the sky in heaven and above the fires in hell is absolutely, unbelievably beautiful. But these are just small observations whose beauty is amplified by the presence of the true beauty that lies beside me, with her arm resting across my stomach and her head on my chest. Her mix of dark and highlit strands swept behind her head and to the side, near my armpit. A thigh over my leg, a slender foot resting on my shin. The smell of her sweat, smell of her hair. All of it, every bit. Beautiful.

“Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?” A wind chime, singing the melodies of the angels by way of the heavenly voice from between her two thin pink lips. I’m so caught up in the beauty of existence that I don’t listen.

“What?”

“I asked, will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s joking, I’m sure. It’s just such a strange thing to ask. But, as she pulls away to look at me, I see that she’s not smiling. In fact, she looks pretty damn serious about it. I take a deep breath, making sure my chest rises and settles, and move my arm higher until I can feel her shoulder blade against the hair on my forearm. It’s something I’ve learned over the years; show that you’re listening when you don’t know what to say.

Finally, I realize I may as well voice what’s in my mind

“What do you mean, ‘will God forgive us’?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “I mean, do you think He’ll forgive us? You know, for having sex?”

Forgive us for having sex? Having sex? What is she, fifteen? She wants forgiveness for experiencing the most beautiful, intimate, passionate aspect of human existence? How can she even think of that now, as we lie together in bed, draped over one another as two bodies melded into one. And good lord, look at her eyes…

“Why would he have to forgive us? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe you don’t think we’ve done something wrong, but He says we have.”

This is getting funny.

“He ‘says,’ really? Did he speak to you?”

“Of coure not. Please don’t mock me. My relationship with God means a lot to me.”

Jesus fuckin’ Christ. “I just don’t get the question. Are you saying this feels wrong to you? Am I evil to you? Do you think I’m here to corrupt your soul?”

“Well, you are being really harsh about it.” The rims of her eyelids are glistening. “You know I’m a Christian.”

I do? I must’ve missed that during the preamble last night.

“It means a lot to me, okay? Please, just tell me what you think. Will God forgive us?”

She’s joking. She has to be. “Look, I get it. You’re a religious person. But you’re kidding, right?”

She pulls away from me then, moving her one leg to the floor followed by the other. Hair draped around her face as she peers down for a second to ensure her footing, then uses her arm to push herself upright. I’m lying there on my back, naked, watching as she climbs over me; there is not a thought in my head.

She walks her dainty self to the other end of the room. Pitter, her feet pitter across the floor. Pumf, pumf, pumf. The soft heel-toe that only small and delicate girls can accomplish. Breasts don’t pitter, but just slightly jiggle. Hers aren’t as large as others, so it’s just slightly. Watching her thighs clench, buttocks tighten with every pumf. She pitters across the hardwood floor of my apartment. Past the corner of the bed, near the fridge and bathroom door. She’s going for the bookshelf?

Her fingers touch on the books, from one to the next.

“Where’s your Bible?”

Fuck me, she is not kidding. And how does she know I even have a Bible?

“Why?”

“I want to read you a passage.” Amazing. She’s actually going to go for a sermon.

“Why does it fuckin’ matter?” Really, why does it? “I suppose the rule is no sex before marriage? So, we’re breakin’ religious law. What’re we to do now? Repent? Kneel and beg for his almighty fuckin’ mercy?”

“You don’t have to shout, or curse.”

I’m shouting?

“Yes, you are, and it’s very disrespectful.”

For a couple of moments I relapse, and it’s Sunday school all over again. I see the steeple of the church as I did every Sunday morning for years. The sheen of those colored stained glass windows in the early morning sun staring out over the crowd of people below, waiting for the doors to open for Sunday service. My parents and older brother go to the area with the picnic tables and talk to the adults while my little sister and I are sent to the large building next to the church where they teach about God and the Bible. The lower half of the walls painted brown and the upper half painted beige along with the majority of the building. We shuffle in and memorize poems that teach us lessons while Mrs. Mallory scolds us if we talk during reading time or form the wrong cross with our thumbs and index fingers. But I’m only there for a few of moments before I turn my attention to the sweet little Bible thumper working her way through my miniature library.

“Look, this is ridiculous. Come back to bed. It’s early, it’s sunny,” at least it was, “and you and I can talk this out without resorting to spouting scripture. Will you come back?”

Not a word. Where’s the effusive gal who smiled playfully when I asked her if she knew what the fish in the tank behind the bartender were thinking.

“What are they thinking?” she’d asked.

“They’re thinking, ‘What’re the tall fellow and gorgeous gal sitting at that bar thinking?’”

She’d laughed, even grinned. She didn’t have to, but she did. Where’s the girl who told me about her escapades as a rambunctious college student and accepted the drinks I bought? She wasn’t a prude about discussing the sexual repression of women in the Middle East. Where’d she go? I want her back.

She finds it on her own. The Bible, which I’ve been promising myself to read (eventually), is brand new if slightly dusty. It’s one of those study bibles with footnotes which may as well be titled “The Bible for Dummies.”

“Have you ever even read this?” She’s leafing through the pages now, that same serious expression still twisting the beauty of the smile that shined down on me no more than an hour ago. She settles on a page and looks up, holding the book with one hand and using the index finger from her other hand to keep her place.

“You have heard that the law of Moses says, Do not commit adultery. But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye – even if it is your good eye – causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses to glance at me. I have no words. I’m not even here.

“And if your hand – even if it is your stronger hand – causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses again, holding the opened book against her flattened stomach and ribs. The cover of the book rests just an inch or two below her breasts.

“So I ask you, again: Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s fucking naked! She’s giving me a sermon and standing there at the foot of the bed with the Bible in her hand pressed against her stomach, and she’s fuckin’ naked. God, this moment is beautiful. I could cum (again) thinking of this moment. If my mind were a VHS tape… well, you know about the worn out points in VHS tapes.

She shakes her head gently, places the Bible back on the bookshelf, and turns around. Son of a bitch, she’s picking up her clothes.

“Wait, wait! Yes, all right? God’s going to forgive us. We are sharing our love with one another – physically and spiritually. That can’t be wrong.”

She slips on her panties, the lacy black pair that landed on the counter in the middle of the night. I’m losing her.

“We can pray! I mean, that’s how it works, isn’t it? We pray for forgiveness.”

Slinking back into the black dress. She pulls it up to her waist, stomach and chest still bared. One arm beneath a strap.

“I didn’t ask you to pray. I asked you if you thought God would forgive–”

“And I said I think he would.” Sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet over my lap. “He will forgive us, because as I said we’ve done nothing wrong. We are two people, and for a night we shared ourselves. Please,” patting the bed, “come back.”

That one strap over her shoulder, looking me in the eyes like someone looks at a faraway sign or really tiny words. I don’t know what to say.

She sighs and quickly pulls up the other strap. “The blood of the wicked can be as sweet as virgin honey.”

What? What kind of response is that?

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You’re a weak man, sweetie. You should work on that.” She smiles. She fucking smiles, then looks away and puts on her flats. The dainty feet don’t pitter as she walks to the door and shuts it, loudly, behind her.

I’m sitting on my bed, wondering what the hell just happened, and all I can think is “fuckin’ God.”

Black ruffled dress, dark hat and ribbons flowing, one fishnet sleeve on the left arm, the right as bare as all sin, and hands as liquid love.  She steps into the fading rays of an overcast day looking out over the baked denizens of aural delight who appear for one show and witness another in the towering Goddess and her shorter white escort.  The pig-tailed delight grows tall, tall to heaven, and fills the room when there are no walls.  Smiles as she mingles in the crowd of onlookers and pauses when one of them wants a memento.  They all watch her walk along the path between the bodies, elegantly, and so easily that it makes them wish they could be as tall as the Goddess and hopefully half as beautiful in a tattered Victorian rag.  They never will, not like her, and she is blessed in this fact.

The trick to the grand show is in the crinkle.  No one notices, but that is where it is.  She looks down at a child as she looks down at a man and the crinkle at the corner of her mouth catches them all by surprise.  The Goddess smiles down upon them and they thank her silently.  It makes her like them and above them, above them all.

A little girl waves and the Goddess slows time as she waves back, left and right and right and left, fingers flowing as threads in space, and she is lost.  Visions of blinding sunlight and starshine filling her eyes.  A kingdom, far from here, far from now, and she knows that she is meant to be there.  She can almost reach it, high as she is.  It is there, and she can smell the burning embers of the warm fire that she must deserve for being here, and being beautiful and tall and elegant.  She does not just parade herself; she dwells among them.  She brings such joy into their hearts.  They love her so much and no one else understands that the Goddess presents the possibilities of endless beauty and in her steady lumbering stride she brings them all into her bubble, into her world.  She is good to them and they do not demand anything of her because they love her, even if they do not speak it aloud.

A mere thundering boom cracks the bubble, and a little girl’s attention is called to the stage back on the world’s surface.

Performers – men with guitars and women on tambourines – on stage to begin their show where the crowd begins to form upon them.  The grandest woman, the goddess, walks beside them, unnoticed and a distant memory.  A photograph, a smile, a caress of a hand – her remains among the people who dwelled in her space (for a time) and lifted her to great heights.  Her divinity crushed by so much interference and mic checks.

She dawdles along, out of view, and her companion closely in tow until they come upon a barren dirt-topped layover behind the food service tents.

“Hey,” says the Goddess.  “How’s your leg?”

The shorter white lovely reaches down, undoing straps one and the other, then lowers herself further until she is mere human.  She smiles up at the Goddess and touches upon her thigh.

“It’s not too bad, just needed time off the poles.”

“Yea, well don’t push it.”

She mustn’t, or risk not returning to her place in heaven.

“Yea I know.  I’ll keep off it this week, I promise.”  The woman, a deceptively small blonde beneath a curtain of powder, gathers her legs and walks toward the parking lot as she waves goodbye.

“You want to come?” she adds.  “I’m meeting Steph for dinner.”

“No,” says the Goddess.  “No, I’m okay.  I need to go to the store and pick up a few things.”

“Okay.  Call me tomorrow?”

The black-ruffled Goddess nods and says goodbye.

The sun rolls along the glass dome as the thunder above gets louder, and the cheers fill the air all around.  The Goddess’ strands fall free and slide across her face when the wind hugs her and urges her to stay where it can be with her.  She glances out across the top of the tents and sees a girl perched atop a young man’s shoulders, arms high in the air.  Beyond is a woman in a long coat coaxing a high-pitched screech from smoke-choked lungs.

The Goddess tells the wind “no” before loosening the straps and lowering herself.  The noises below envelop her further, all that she is.

Smiles and screams for the siren usurper.

Dirt gathers along the fringes of her dress; the woman in the black dress yawns.  What a glorious dream… what a glorious day.  Her feet ache and the red sheen upon her face reminds her of what she forgot.  She enters an empty tent and lifts her black bag from a pile.  The black dress, and the hat, and single fishnet sleeve come off.  Torn jeans and a t-shirt that reads TIDE then adorn her and make her more human than she cares to consider.  The ribbons in her hair fall to the ground as she shakes her curls loose and sighs through her nose.  Beer in a cooler keeps her company until she must leave.  Bitter and calming, like a sweet embrace from a hated friend.

When the day ends the workers dismantle the stage and ravel the cords, criss-crossing across the grounds where hoppers and dancers and arm flailers bounced to the music and lived for the moment.  As life resumes and the future beckons the revelers depart and leave behind the sense of wonder and freedom inside the beer cans, cigarette butts, and rumpled paper bags on the grass.

The woman in torn jeans and a t-shirt exits the tent and she is Mel.  No longer the Goddess… no longer above.  Long aluminum poles in hand, she exits the tent and waves to familiars on her way to the parking lot.  Her brown Honda Accord with the faded hood and red tape for a taillight does not beckon nor carry her on wings of golden feathered silk to the birthplace of light and the eternal loving embrace.  She drives among people, and cars, and dirty little animals, until she stops at a store near her home.

“That’ll be three-fifty,” says the clerk.

A bottle of sunblock in a bag on the front seat as she drives to her apartment over the hill on La Brea, near Hollywood where dreams go to die.  Near Hollywood where her boyfriend Kevin finds her tired and not in the mood.

“C’mon, Mel.  Look at you.  I don’t get why you keep doing this.  You come back tired and depressed every time.  If this stilts shit is so much fun why’re you always like this when you get back?”

“I know you don’t get it. There are lots of things you don’t get, Kev.”

“Look, I don’t want to get into a fight about this again.  You do it until you realize there’s no point.  I’ll support you…” her hair in his hand, “as long as you like.”  He kisses her neck and she turns away towards the television; there is a commercial for laundry soap.

“There’s always a point.  Good or bad, there’s always a point.”

“Don’t get poetic on me now, Mel, or I’ll really be lost.”  He sits beside her and holds her hand.  “You know I care about you, babe.  I just want you happy.  Is it too much to ask to see you happy?”

She crinkles the corner of her mouth and allows him to kiss her, softly then with increasing pressure.  He gets high along her thigh before she pulls away.  Kevin pleads and he charms; she relents.  Mel stares past his glistening ear and dark hair and she notices that a stain on the ceiling is shaped like a dog paddling along a lake, probably looking for a stick that was never there.

She said it would not take too long, all the make-up and the clothes and the hair, but it took too long.  Forty five minutes too long.  The barbecue would not miss us, but I would miss the first chance at the bacon-wrapped hot dogs.  Those don’t last very long at one of these barbecue events and they certainly wait for no man who waits for his girlfriend.  All I can do is idle in despair from the kitchen to the living room, occasionally glancing at the clock on the mantle to see if it matches the clock on my wrist.  Patience is not one of my virtues.

Nor, evidently, is memory.

Sylvia finally walks out and I’m reminded of why I never mind that she takes so long to get ready.  Her unusually shimmery brown hair (byproduct of a costly kitchen skylight) is tied back and away from her shoulders in a simple ponytail, which allows the purple sweater-blouse thing to show off what she knows she has in ample supply.  The black denim wrapped around her legs stretches and creases to the point of vulgarity.  As she nonchalantly approaches I note that her demure eyes and steady, low-heeled step show no sign of remorse.  Barbecue, even bacon-wrapped barbecue, means less to her than the presence and air of a beautifully tardy woman.

And yet, no matter the depth of my observations, I have to ask.

“What took so long?”

She smirks and picks up her oversized wallet.  “I could not find the address that you lost, and then I had to get directions online.”

I’m certain the humility on my face is missed as I turn away in a faint toward the door.  “It’s what I get for writing things on matchbooks.”

“Spending time at the bar, are you?”  More curiosity than accusation in her tone, but too much experience with the latter puts me on the defensive.

“Just passing time with the boss.  It got us invited to his house for this didn’t it?”

“Yes,” she says.  “It did.”  I hold the door for her and pretend not to notice the glare as she steps out into the sun.  The afternoon wanes and almost beckons us to the car for more moments of awkward bliss.

Car silence is unlike any other kind.  The space only allows for so much lack of sound to exist before it is echoed back, worsened by the proximity of sounds outside the car.  The honk of a horn is all too loud and the reverberation of every engine creates a very small space in which to sit silently and avoid speaking.  To prevent agitation at what should be a pleasant gathering I decide to burst the bubble.

“Do you suppose President Bush could have defeated the Batman during his presidency?”

She turns to look at me and I can feel the retort building, but being in our ripe old twenties we have learned to avoid the argumentative pitfalls that young couples fall into.  She gets my meaning and turns back to the windshield.

“Only if Bush conscripts Batman and fiendishly masterminds a plot in which Batman believes he is fighting a foreign enemy and unknowingly defeats himself.”

I tell her that I don’t believe Bush could have done that on his own.

“What did he ever?”  I see her smiling in the windshield.  My day is suddenly dramatically improved.  The sun’s rays are therapeutic, the honking horns are music, and the barbecue, bacon-wrapped or otherwise, will be that much sweeter.

My hand rests on her thigh as we sit in traffic and watch the backs of other cars.  She looks to the side, where fields of rooftops appear beyond the concrete banks.  Her eyes dart from one to the next, searching for one that could be like the one that will someday be ours.  Sylvia’s eyes behind darkly shimmering glass.  I squeeze the coarse black denim beneath my hand.  Her muscle flexes responsively.

The sun stares at us in the million-mile stretch.  More waiting.

“Give me your hand for a second.”

She turns to look at me, hesitates.  “Why?” she asks.  I still surprise her.

I tell her I’m curious.

Sylvia’s hand rises and hangs in the air, limp fingers pointing to the silent CD player.  Her hand is small, light.  Nails are manicured, crafted by a Korean artisan of local renown.  Tiny lines and wrinkles where the joints meet.  As I run my hand along the surface the fine hairs act as conduits, bring a series of moments into view.  Memories of a dip in the water before she dives in.  Holding a purse.  Gently nestling a glass between the fingers and cradling it on her palm.  A smile through orbed glass.  A fine hand, with many memories to its credit.

“Your hand is the start,” I say, moving further along her arm.  Slightly thicker hairs line her forearm.  Soft wrinkles on the inside of her elbow.  “It’s the start of the path.”  Up along her bare arm, toward the purple fabric that begins at her shoulder.  Her eyes follow my hand until she moves.

“No, no,” says Sylvia.  “We’re on hands.”  She takes me and moves me back down to the start.  Holds me still.  “We’re at the starting line.”

“Why?” I ask.  She purses her lips, and thinks.

I wait.

“To get a sense of where we are,” she finally says.

“To torture me,” I tell her.  I hold her and feel her palm with my thumb, gently kneading.  “Your hand is too enticing.  It pulls me into you, into your heart.”

She chuckles at me then. It only hurts a little, and I don’t allow it to show.  “You are too preoccupied with the heart,” she says.  “Right now, right here, just focus on my hand.”  She brings my hand back down to her thigh, placed over hers.

I tell her I’ll try.

Holding her hand I look at it, swaying forward as the car stops again.  It is then that I catch a glimpse of my hand over hers.  It is a worn hand.  Marks along the surface.  Veins.  Hair and tendons moving at the slightest twitch of a finger.  My unevenly colored hide in stark contrast to her smoothly pale skin.

“Look at my hand.”

“What about it?” she asks.

“Look at it.  There are wrinkles.  Hair.  Ridges and dents and scars.  It’s the ugliest hand I’ve ever seen.  How could you possibly allow me to touch you?”

She looks down at my hand and pulls away, repositioning her own hand over mine.  Most hands are warm.  Hers is searing.

“Because it is your hand,” she says.  “I don’t allow you to touch me.”  She turns and her lips brush against mine as she kisses the side of my face.

“I want you to touch me,” she whispers.

Reassurance.

She returns to her side and looks at me.  Several feet of asphalt pass underneath as we sit in pleasant silence, quite unlike the beginning of our drive.  A 65 MPH sign moves from the front to the side to slightly behind.

She holds me in her silence until she finally speaks.  “Your hand is yours. I’ve watched you use your hand.  I’ve felt you.  It is rough, and wrinkly, and hairy.  Your hand is yours, and after all this time it’s also mine.”  She brings my hand up to her chest.

“I could do whatever I want with my hand,” she says.

I nod.

She raises our hand to her mouth.  A gentle press of lips on hairy, dented skin.

“You don’t mind if I take this seat, do you?”

“No,” says Paula.

“Oh, good.”  The tall man smiles, and he is blonde, and he is older.  His suit screams of class; her clothes scream indifference.  It’s only a sports bar at ten-thirteen at night.

“A glass of Merlot, please.”  His order screams of class as well.  Paula’s beer is looking mighty dull at this point.  He is alone—no woman.  A business man.

He swirls the wine in the glass, takes a whiff.  “God, it’s so warm out there, isn’t it?”

“A little bit.”

He thanks the bartender for bringing the wine, then glances at the television she stares at.  The game’s over, and only highlights are played.  Night at a bar in the airport.  His face has lines and freckles.  It looks comfortably worn.  Friendly.

“So where are you headed?” she asks.

He turns back to Paula, smiles again.  Perfectly combed hair.  His shoes shine like the brass bar below them.

She hears D.C., and purses her lips as she nods her head.  “Good place, I hear.”

“Yea,” he says.   “It’s great.  Though it’s somewhat difficult to get around.”  Only in a bar, and only at an airport.

“How so?”

“Well, people drive like maniacs.”

“Don’t go to L.A.,” she says.

“Why?”

“Driving,” she says, “is not easy to manage.  Strange that it’s required of every human being within the county limits.”

He delivers an uneasy smile.  Too many beers already on her tab.

“Come now.  Are you perhaps being melodramatic?”

Paula is not being melodramatic.  He waits and then glances across the bar to the rows of bottles.

“Well, I have been there.  It’s not that the driving is bad, it’s just odd.  Likewise, D.C. is very odd.”

“What’s odd in D.C.?” she asks.

“Driving… the people.  Very pressured lifestyle, you know?  I’ll often just find myself walking on streets in the middle of the night to free the mind a bit.  It can be overwhelming.”  One of those.  Opens up easy, like a flower in the morning dewlight.

Paula says, “huh.”

He says he was visiting a sister.  Probably another Nordic beauty, like him.

“How was she?”

“Good.  She just recently moved out there.”

Her eyes are on the television.  The Lakers are not doing well.  A shame.

“So why is driving a pain in D.C.?”

“Ah well, everything is different.  I’m just not used to it, I suppose.  I tell my wife that…”

Wife.  Unimportant.  Something about a Mercedes.

The bartender says, “Your tuna melt and fries,” and she says “Wrap that up to go, please.  And give me a shot of Jack.”

Paula drinks the shot and smiles; she has to go catch her flight.  He smiles back and says it was nice to meet her.  The momentary pause of consideration and wonder is lost in an instant as a loud paper bag is dragged along a bar and placed in a messenger bag, destined for the overhead storage compartment of an Embraer ERJ 145 on its way to Seattle.

She sits in the airport terminal for forty-five minutes and watches the lights slowly roll by the window as the arrivals are taxied into position.

A dimly lit airplane in the middle of the night is a den of philosophers.  Travelers attempt to sleep as they reflect on the past and consider the future in the context of traveling aboard a time capsule.  They enter, they sit, and just as quickly as they take off, they arrive at their destination.  These people had lives and fly quickly back to those lives, but in the airplane in the middle of the night they are frozen.  The forty-four minds are momentarily contained.  The man in the brown waist-coat and spectacles reads the card detailing the airplane’s emergency procedures as if he intends to follow the procedures if the plane were to fall over the Cascades stretching north below them, as if he were not going to panic and groan to the Lord to save him.  The tanned German teenager and her boyfriend in the pink hooded sweatshirt talk softly among themselves, holding secret conversations and expressing what seem like hidden desires but are in actuality thoughts about the parents they left behind in order to take a vacation.  Paula, too, is deep in thought and passes the time by assuming and gleaning secrets about those around her.

Beyond a cough and a whisper there is silence, but silence screams loudest of all when every mind is abuzz with possibility and regret.  Those left behind are remembered and those waiting for them are considered.  The lights outside the window are few and far between, partially obscured by the engine located at the rear of the craft where she has been seated.  Thunderous noise is not so noticeable when it is constant, and the silence remains undisturbed.

They do not serve meals on this flight.

The bus stop in front of an empty airport terminal at night is mostly devoid of life.  Few people come and quickly go as they ride away in a taxi or hotel bus.  There is no bus or taxi for her.  She sits at the end of the curve in the road and watches the windows for approaching headlights from around the bend.

The air is cold here.  Paula wonders if pigeons fly at night.

Buildings are cold and lifeless and they are designed for efficiency, a trait that is as useless to the heart of the mind as wings on an elephant.  She is patient to an extent and impatient enough to sit, then stand, then pace from one end of the walkway to the other.  Time passes in hours at first, then minutes.

As she ponders an action and all possible reactions she rests her hand on a messenger bag and finds strange warmth.  Velcro tears open and inside is the wonderful smell of a tuna melt and fries.  Flashes of hunger spring into her and the plastic box is torn open.  Buttered bread, now soggy, slides into her hands.  The aroma of shredded tuna fish whipped and spread with a tangy mayonnaise across the thick toast fills her nostrils and cause Paula to raise her head to the air for a heavy dose.  A cold breeze blows through an aluminum bus stop’s slatted walls and moments later the tuna melt is in her hands and in her mouth, vanishing one bite at a time and difficult to swallow as she forces the clumps of softened food and wishes she had accepted the water bottle aboard the flight.  The tuna melt is gone in the span of a few minutes and the warm stale fries shortly thereafter.  She sits for a while as her esophagus is cleared and she returns to herself in the cold night at a bus stop at an airport.  Reality is mere fantasy when there is nothing to keep a person grounded.

As the cold surrounds her she reaches into a gray nylon sack and removes from it a white towel, using it to envelop herself in shallow warmth.  The white towel stands out against the surface of the night’s cloak, and she stares at the windows waiting for headlights that will never come.

“They’re always married,” she mumbles.